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]]>The post Why CIOs Should Target AI-Based WiFi Automation Platforms appeared first on Wyebot.
]]>You might ask, “Aren’t IT systems already automatic? What about smart assistants, IoT devices, and bots?” While automation isn’t absent from the IT world – especially when it comes to new devices and technologies – many infrastructure management systems still depend on manual, reactive processes. For example: problem ticketing systems. Under these systems, IT has to wait for stakeholders to report issues before they can begin troubleshooting, and, often, troubleshooting is largely a manual task.
This is time consuming and expensive. Every minute that a problem goes unreported and unresolved, operational efficiency can suffer. If the problem is intermittent – as many are – IT might have to wait days for an issue to reoccur so that they can capture the data needed to identify the root cause and provide a resolution.
For CIOs, who are prepping industries for next-generation networks that depend on speed and real-time analytics, this way of doing business is now unacceptable. Standard operating procedures have to adapt to providing proactive, automatic support. This is why AI-based WiFi automation platforms are critical.
AI-Based WiFi Automation
These platforms do exactly what you’d expect – they automate the monitoring and analysis of the entire WiFi ecosystem. Depending on the platform, this includes not only connected devices and infrastructure, but also any nearby networks or non-WiFi devices operating in the same airspace.
Not only does this automatic analysis free up IT resources for other tasks, it’s also the only way for teams to receive the real-time, up-to-date information that they need to ensure WiFi assurance. Thanks to the vast size and complexity of industry networks, it is simply no longer possible for human IT teams to monitor everything in real-time. If teams, and CIOs, want the confidence of knowing everything about the network so that they can improve operations and the end user experience, they need automation.
Here are three ways these platforms support the main business objectives of CIOs around the world.
Business Continuity
Business continuity is the primary focus for CIOs: ensuring that everything works well across the entire IT ecosystem, while also focusing on where the industry is moving and identifying future needs.
Success depends on CIOs recommending and acquiring the technology needed to meet the job requirements of all employees; meeting and exceeding security requirements; and ensuring that all technology works reliably, with an eye on achieving flawless performance.
If any part of this pillar crumbles – job-required technology, security, reliable performance – a business crumbles along with it.
To protect continuity, AI-based platforms deliver:
Flexibility
While this was a focus pre-pandemic, all efforts in this arena have been accelerated tremendously, and there’s no reason to expect that to change. CIOs now need strategies that address a hybrid workforce, one where employees aren’t simply divided into remote and onsite, but might be onsite on Monday, remote at home on Tuesday, and remote while traveling on Friday.
It’s a new, almost living and breathing environment, one that means a lot of different things to different people; and in addition to needing the architecture and technology to support this constantly changing environment, CIOs also now lead IT organizations that are less flexible than they used to be.
While it used to be normal for IT to be able to travel onsite to troubleshoot problems and push through upgrades whenever they needed to, CIOs now can’t count on that always being an option. Instead, they need to have contingencies in place that address the new mobile enterprise and complexities of travel.
In addition to the features listed above (especially 24/7 visibility), automation platforms support flexibility by delivering easy, remote access to networks.
With this access, IT can monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize networks from any location at any time. They no longer have to spend time and money traveling onsite, even if conditions allow for it, but can run end user quality tests and resolve issues from a central location.
No one wants to tie IT optimization to the ability to be onsite. CIOs need to invest in automatic, remote platforms if they want to keep their businesses working well.
Adaptability
Adaptability goes hand in hand with flexibility, but adds an emphasis on looking towards the future.
For uninterrupted business continuity, the technological infrastructure that supports almost all business processes has to be ready – at some level – to support whatever the future holds, whether that’s the future two weeks from now or two years from now. For obvious reasons, it simply wouldn’t work if all productivity had to halt as systems were completely rebuilt every time industries faced major technological or physical changes.
To better adapt businesses for the future, CIOs have to not only study market trends, but also look back at their own performance. To be successful, they need the historical analytics offered by WiFi automation platforms.
When these platforms automatically analyze and save historical data, they provide decision makers with:
Intentionally Preparing
As companies continue to embrace the billion dollar markets of emerging technologies, they must make the same investments in infrastructure and analytics platforms.
This might be an easy shift for your business, or it might take more work, but it’s always necessary. If you’d like more information – or a free trial – talk to us about how the Wireless Intelligence Platform delivers:
The post Why CIOs Should Target AI-Based WiFi Automation Platforms appeared first on Wyebot.
]]>The post Automatically, Proactively Prepare Your WiFi Network for the Holiday and Giving Season appeared first on Wyebot.
]]>With networks consisting of thousands of connected devices, apps, and data packets, optimizing the WiFi is no simple task. IT professionals must have eyes on everything if they are to identify issues in real-time and solve them as quickly as possible. This is a task that isn’t possible without the help of WiFi automation platforms.
Why WiFi automation?
These platforms support IT by:
They change WiFi optimization from a slow, complicated, manual, and reactive process to one that is fast, simple, automatic, and proactive.
To ensure that your network is ready for hundreds or thousands of online orders and online donations a day, let a WiFi automation platform handle the following tasks:
Proactively test the shopping/donating experience
Your holiday campaigns will see limited success if you don’t make sure that the shopping/donating experience is issue-free. Schedule end user quality tests to run automatically and frequently so that your IT team always has an in-depth understanding of exactly what end users are experiencing.
If a test fails for any reason, IT should receive a real-time alert that contains the failure, the reason for the failure (identified root cause), and actionable resolutions. This gives teams what they need to resolve problems before end users are affected.
Keep inventory updated in real-time
This season is often the season of rush orders. It’s imperative that you know the exact state of your inventory minute-to-minute so that you can give customers and employees the most accurate information possible.
These up-to-date insights and communications often rely on apps and IoT monitoring devices, both of which depend on the WiFi. The network therefore needs to be reliable, available, and high-performing 24/7. Any downtime or interference can mean the difference between record holiday sales and dissatisfied customers.
With a platform automatically alerting IT to issues and providing actionable resolutions, companies can rest assured that all end users have the information they need when they need it.
Actively and automatically ensure network security
The last thing you ever want is a security breach, and that goes double for the holiday season. Not only can a breach have serious, immediate repercussions for customers and employees, it can also affect your bottom line and reputation for months to come. Make sure that an automation platform is regularly checking firewalls, servers, and switches. If anything out of the ordinary happens, you want to know immediately. That means real-time monitoring and automatic alerts are necessary.
Monitor and optimize remote sites
Many sites don’t have a full-time IT presence. When those sites experience network issues, there can be a costly delay in resolution as IT must travel to the site before they can identify the root cause of the issue and resolve it. During the holiday and giving season, every second counts, which makes avoiding these delays critical.
Automation platforms provide an answer by giving IT remote access to the network. The entire network can be reviewed at all times, and issues can be identified and resolved from any location.
Prepare for next year
The platform needs to analyze and save all WiFi network analytics, not only during the 2021 holiday season but also throughout the year. This historical data gives you the insights you need to understand exactly what your network was asked to support and how it performed. This makes it easier for decision makers to determine how to best upgrade/update the network for the future.
Choose the right platform
The Wireless Intelligence Platform is best-in-class, award winning, and vendor agnostic. It saves companies and IT professionals time, energy, and money by delivering:
Schedule a demo or free trial today and see what WIP can do for you.
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]]>The post Supporting Retail with Problem-Free WiFi appeared first on Wyebot.
]]>Why is a WiFi network important?
At first glance a retail store might not seem like a WiFi-dependent site, but that would be a mistake. WiFi is used by employees and customers in a number of ways, including:
If the WiFi network is unreliable, it can make employee tasks difficult, if not impossible, and frustrate customers as well. It’s in a store’s best interest to prevent this scenario.
WiFi network challenges
What can retail organizations do to ensure WiFi assurance? They need to address these common challenges:
Plan for complete coverage for strong connectivity
Stores need a network designed specifically for them in order to avoid dead spots and dropped connections. The design must take into consideration building materials, furniture, storage spaces, and nearby stores – all of which are potential sources of interference.
The network design should be reviewed after any major changes – such as a store redesign.
Make the best capacity decisions possible
It’s difficult to plan capacity in retail sites because people will be in and out in unknown numbers all day long. For this reason, we recommend that stores plan their network around the assumed maximum capacity.
Organizations should also be as specific as possible about what the network needs to support. This includes the types and numbers of devices (both those used by employees and customers); and how the network will be used (for example, how data-intensive will apps be?)
Secure the network
With so many people hopping on and off the network, security is critical. Organizations should have a dedicated guest network for all customers. This network shouldn’t allow access to any confidential information. Stores can further protect information by dedicating another network to IoT devices, as many of these devices aren’t WPA2 or WPA3 capable (common WiFi security protocols).
How to automatically assure WiFi network reliability
How can stores easily and cost-effectively address connectivity, capacity, and security? With WiFi automation platforms.
We’ve moved past the days where networks could be easily, manually monitored. These days, with thousands of data packets sent a second, countless connected devices, and near-constant movement from devices and end-users, IT teams need the support of automated platforms. These platforms provide the 24/7 analytics that are necessary if an organization wants to guarantee network optimization. Here’s how they return time, energy, and money to retail organizations and IT professionals:
Automatic, Proactive Identification of WiFi Performance Problems
WiFi automation platforms provide a switch from manual, reactive troubleshooting to automatic, proactive resolutions. The platform keeps eyes on the WiFi network at all times, which allows it to alert IT to issues as soon as they occur. These proactive alerts will always be better than reactive ones because they allow retail sites to solve problems before end users are affected. This not only keeps customers happy, but ensures smooth operational efficiency and productivity from all employees.
It also means that stores have greater access to behavioral data analytics – the faster problems are reported, the quicker they can be resolved, and the fewer analytics that will be missed due to network issues.
For the best ROI, the platform should not only alert IT to the issue, but also identify the problem’s root cause and suggest actionable resolutions. This makes it possible for the network to return to an optimized state in a fraction of the time.
Complete Visibility
The only way to know the health and performance of the entire network is with complete visibility. This needs to include backend and frontend infrastructure, all connected devices, network applications, and any non-WiFi devices operating in the same airspace (like Bluetooth devices). It should also include device capabilities, which will come in handy when upgrade decisions are made. For example, if an organization wants to upgrade to the latest WiFi-standard, they need to know how many devices will also have to be upgraded and how many are already capable of connecting to new infrastructure.
This complete visibility means that IT can see at a glance if something isn’t quite right, not to mention it allows stores to proactively review coverage and network design at any time. Data that isn’t captured is data that can’t be analyzed – which means there are issues that can go unseen and unresolved until huge problems develop. Avoid this with WiFi automation platforms.
Remote Capabilities
Not all stores have an IT professional onsite at all times. This can mean frustrating and costly delays when it comes to issue resolution – but not with a remote-capable platform.
With remote access, IT teams can solve problems and review network behavior at any time and from any location. This significantly reduces the Mean-Time-to-Resolution.
Historical Data
The historical data provided by some WiFi automation platforms is critically useful in a number of ways, including:
Selecting a WiFi automation platform
The award-winning, vendor agnostic Wireless Intelligence Platform is AI-powered and delivers:
Contact us today for a demo or free trial.
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]]>The post Supporting Decentralized Clinical Trials with WiFi Automation appeared first on Wyebot.
]]>What is trial decentralization?
Decentralized clinical trials are designed to take place at least partly in patient homes, rather than requiring participants to travel to research sites. This allows more patients to participate, which is great news for them and for researchers.
Decentralization itself is made possible by technologies such as telehealthcare, remote patient monitoring, widespread internet availability, and the growth of mobile devices. These advancements not only allow patients to interact with physicians from their homes, but also make it possible for researchers to establish mobile clinics or pop-up sites. These sites can be set-up closer to trial participants rather than requiring everyone to travel to a central research location.
Trials can be either fully decentralized, with all procedures conducted virtually and all supplies delivered to the patient; hybrid, with a mix of telehealthcare, remote data collection, and some in-person visits; or centralized, with all trial activities conducted at a research site.
This post will discuss how WiFi Automation technology can best support physicians and patients participating in decentralized and hybrid trials.
What technologies do physicians need for decentralized trials?
The overarching need is for a robust, secure, and reliable wireless network. This network is the foundation needed for most other technologies involved in the process. This includes:
While patients may be in their homes or at a remote/mobile/pop-up site, physicians and researchers are far more likely to be at one location, whether that be a mobile site or a central building. That location must have the most reliable WiFi possible. Any issues such as network downtime, will result in frustrated end users, and possibly expensive trial delays. While trial sponsors and physicians can’t control the state of the WiFi in a patient’s home, they can and do depend on IT teams to ensure that the WiFi at healthcare sites is top-of-the-line with always-perfect performance.
What tools best support WiFi network optimization?
For the most reliable, problem-free networks, healthcare facilities need:
Remote Support
Depending on the location and permanence of a healthcare site, an IT team might not be consistently onsite. This requires them to have remote visibility into the network, as well as the ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues from any location at any time. This greatly reduces the Mean-time-to-Resolution, ensuring that issues are solved faster than ever.
Complete Visibility
No network can operate in absolute peak form unless IT has the ability to review, analyze, and optimize every piece of it. This requires visibility into backend and frontend infrastructure, applications, connected devices, and non-WiFi devices operating in the same airspace (an interference risk).
This visibility should be provided 24/7, and IT should always be able to review real-time and historical network data. Real-time data allows teams to solve in-the-moment issues, while historical data provides them with the ability to review network behavior when no one was on site and in the event of an intermittent issue.
Proactive, Automatic Alerts
With reactive alerts, IT is forced to respond to issues only after end users have been affected. Based on the complexity of the problem and time of the alert, this can result in resolution delays that lead to network performance degradation that lasts anywhere from minutes to days. Not ideal in any way, shape, or form.
However, with proactive, automatic alerts, IT is notified of issues as soon as they occur. This allows teams to resolve issues faster, often before end users are affected. The resolution time is made even shorter if the automatic alert contains the root cause of the issue and actionable resolutions, rather than merely a list of symptoms.
Vendor Agnostic Tools
Any tool used to provide the above capabilities should be vendor agnostic. This allows it to accurately provide data on every piece of network infrastructure, and ensures that it can be used even if network vendors change over time or across locations.
While facilities can choose to work with multiple tools, working with an all-in-one, vendor-agnostic solution simplifies optimization. Additionally, if IT only has to learn to use one technology to analyze network performance, time and money are saved on training.
The Wireless Intelligence Platform
With so much riding on a reliable WiFi network, clinical trials can’t afford any network degradation. Healthcare facilities, whether remote, mobile, pop-up, or permanent, that use the award-winning, vendor-agnostic Wireless Intelligence Platform (WIP) see:
As patients, physicians, and sponsors become more comfortable with mobile health technology, and as technologies improve, we are likely to see more hybrid and decentralized clinical trials. While there are challenges involved, use WIP to ensure that network stability is never one of yours.
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